o
Dinard. What will become of me without you?"

She clasped her hands and looked at him with a sadness infinitely
tender. But he, more sombre, said:

"It is I, Therese, it is I who must ask anxiously, What will become
of me without you? When you leave me alone I am assailed by painful
thoughts; black ideas come and sit in a circle around me."

She asked him what those ideas were.

He replied:

"My beloved, I have already told you: I have to forget you with you.
When you are gone, your memory will torment me. I have to pay for the
happiness you give me."

CHAPTER XXVIII. NEWS OF LE MENIL

The blue sea, studded with pink shoals, threw its silvery fringe softly
on the fine sand of the beach, along the amphitheatre terminated by two
golden horns. The beauty of the day threw a ray of sunlight on the tomb
of Chateaubriand. In a room where a balcony looked out upon the beach,
the ocean, the islands, and the promontories, Therese was reading the
letters which she had found in the morning at the St. Malo post-office,
and which she had not opened in the boat, loaded with passengers. At
once, after breakfast, she had closeted herself in her room, and there,
her letters unfolded on her knees, she relished hastily her furtive
joy. She was to drive at two o'clock on the mall with her father, her
husband, the Princess Seniavine; Madame Berthier-d'Eyzelles, the wife of
the Deputy, and Madame Raymond, the wife of the Academician. She had two
letters that day. The first one she read exhaled a tender aroma of love.
Jacques had never displayed more simplicity, more happiness, and more
charm.

Since he had been in love with her, he said, he had walked so lightly
and was supported by such joy that his feet did not touch the earth. He
had only one fear, which was that he might be dreaming, and might awake
unknown to her. Doubtless he was only dreaming. And what a dream! He
was like one intoxicated and singing. He had not his reason, happily.
Absent, he saw her continually. "Yes, I see you near me; I see your
lashes shading eyes the gray of which is more delicious than all the
blue of the sky and the flowers; your lips, which have the taste of a
marvellous fruit; your cheeks, where laughter puts two adorable dimples;
I see you beautiful and desired, but fleeing and gliding away; and when
I open my arms, you have gone; and I see you afar on the long, long
beach, not taller than a fairy, in your pink gown, under your parasol.
Oh